Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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Another Fake ‘Man of the People’

One of the most absurd aspects of American political culture is watching rich and powerful politicians pretend to be just like the common folk they’re trying to appeal to. ThinkProgress catches a perfect example, a Republican Senate candidate in Massachusetts, state Rep. Dan Winslow, talking about how much he hates yacht clubs while winning a straw poll held at a yacht club:

“They gave us three minutes to speak today; three minutes is longer than I ever wanted to spend in a yacht club,” Winslow said. “I am not a tea and crumpets Republican. I am here because there are activists here. I am running a grassroots campaign.”

This bit of aw shucks, I’m just a regular Joe feigning might be a bit more believable if Winslow hadn’t served on the board of directors of a yacht club as recently as 2011. It reminds me of George W. Bush, the scion of one of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful political families, who was educated at Phillips Exeter and Yale, pretending to be a shit-kicking Texas cowboy. As Bill Maher pointed out long ago, he was basically wearing a costume. It would have been no less absurd if he had pretended to be a pirate.

What, you think the guy who protected south Texas from the Viet Cong using land-based F-102s before going AWOL on a coke binge learned how to successfully land an S-3 on a carrier deck? The WH had to quietly walk back implications that C-Plus Augustus had been at the controls, despite his name being painted on the jet for the duration of the performance.

That whole display was a world of disgusting in itself, amid the atrocity that was the Iraq War.

That whole display was a world of disgusting in itself, amid the atrocity that was the Iraq War.

Ah, yes. The old “Mission Accomplished” theatrics where, once the war turned to shit and more Americans started coming home in boxes, the bushies claimed it was the Navy’s idea to put up the banner instead of it being yet another prop insisted upon by the CinC managers. Not to mention the staging of the whole thing a couple miles off the coast of San Diego but making it appear to be on the high seas.

My disgust with that POS and his people hasn’t abated one bit in all the years since that debacle.

This bit of aw shucks, I’m just a regular Joe feigning might be a bit more believable if Winslow hadn’t served on the board of directors of a yacht club as recently as 2011. It reminds me of George W. Bush, the scion of one of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful political families, who was educated at Phillips Exeter and Yale, pretending to be a shit-kicking Texas cowboy. As Bill Maher pointed out long ago, he was basically wearing a costume. It would have been no less absurd if he had pretended to be a pirate.

The authoritative biography on Ronald Reagan is titled, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, written by Lou Cannon. And while President Reagan used a lot of what he learned as an actor once he became a politician, he was never something he was not. So as much as I loved this book, and how the title resonates, it was not an accurate description of Mr. Reagan. Instead his Hollywood years mostly had him delivering mythical narratives that resonated with far too many Americans. But acting the part, no, he was authentic in his own skin as enigmatic as that skin was.

Instead I think the greatest actor-president was George W. Bush for the reasons Ed gives here. And yet even in Mr. Bush’s case, the role he took on eventually consumed what he was prior to becoming president. I think because he was so intellectually lazy where his acting job required far less energy than being the type of man his family groomed. Bush learned how to exploit mediocrity into a winning political strategy. Where current and future generations will be paying the price, I predict for centuries given his leadership in solidifying the GOP into reality deniers and the ramifications of that when it comes to geo-politics, global economics, and climate change.

I also see Mr. Bush as a pivotal character in terms of Republican leaders pandering to their voting base. Thomas Franks’ most-excellent observations in What’s the Matter with Kansas [2004] reveals how some plutocrats leveraged social conservative issues as a way to attract populists to the party and get them to vote for distinctly non-populist economic and regulatory policies. Mr. Bush is a pivotal character because his resume reads like a classic example of the types of politicians who were backed by plutocratic Republicans that Franks describes. However Bush was actually more like the populists in terms of his personality and critical thinking skills when politics and religion were involved (a near total lack of). He led the way into turning the politicians who served the plutocracy coming from the populist movement itself, a phenomena best observed in the U.S. House over the past three elections.

There is an anecdote that Ronald Reagan once -while meeting an Israeli leader- claimed to have been on s ite when the U S Army liberated a concentration camp. In reality ronnie stayed in USA doing propaganda fims for the military.

There is an anecdote that Ronald Reagan once -while meeting an Israeli leader- claimed to have been on s ite when the U S Army liberated a concentration camp. In reality ronnie stayed in USA doing propaganda fims for the military.

It’s a failure of integrity to spread defamatory rumors for which there is no evidence. Just because Mr. Reagan belongs to an opposing political tribe is not justification to defame him. In fact it weakens the moral authority and integrity of the group others perceive that you represent; even if your opponents display the same bad behavior.

Apropos Dubya’s service in the Texas Air National Guard, it should be noted that he jumped the queue to get in using his father’s influence; it is my understanding that there were some 130 men ahead of him.